


Some Days, Some Nights

by lazaefair



Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 18:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13957374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair
Summary: “Prince N’Jadaka of the Golden Tribe. My father committed a great wrong against you, and for that I am sorry.” T’Challa spreads his hands. “I would ask for your forgiveness, but I suspect you prefer actions over words.”Coming out of the theater, all I could think was: there had to have been a way.





	Some Days, Some Nights

Pain.

Erik knows pain. Hasn’t been a single fucking moment in his personal goddamn saga that he hasn’t known pain in one form or another. But there’s pain, and then there’s _pain,_ you know?

Like the kind that comes from the blow you know has killed you.

Life he’s led, he’s clawed his way back from that before. Got the training and the nightmares and the fucking scars to prove it. This one, though. Ain’t no coming back from this one.

Got no inclination to, either. It’s a miracle he’s alive even now, even with those fucking freaky Black Panther powers running through his severed arteries, his sliced-up lungs, his shredded heart.

Fuck, that’s a fucking beautiful sunset.

Sorry, Pops.

“We could still heal you.”

Erik side-eyes the man who’s killed him. “Why? So you can just lock me up? No.”

He’s seen the Wakandan prison facilities. Impenetrable glass, gleaming white surfaces, luxury resort accommodations compared to the shithole torture factories he’s seen around the world. Been in a few of them. Put a lot more people into them. A cage is a cage is a cage.

“No,” T’Challa echoes, gleaming all dark gold in the corner of Erik’s eye. “For your knowledge. You would know best where to focus our efforts to reach out. Where to extend our hands. Where the need would be greatest.”

Jesus fuck, what?

“You were right, Erik,” T’Challa says, all low and soft-spoken, whispering into Erik’s ear, angel and demon both. “We have turned our backs for too long. Forsaken our brothers and sisters for too long. You were right. I want to change things. With your help.”

Rage makes his bleeding heart beat harder, makes the pain spike to crippling. “Motherfucker, what gives you the right? What in the goddamn hell makes you think you have the right to—”

“N’Jadaka, nceda,” T’Challa says. It takes Erik a long, dizzying moment to parse the Xhosa into English. _N’Jadaka, please._

T’Challa comes around in front of him a little more, not quite blocking the sunset. He doesn’t look much like the photos Erik spent half his life staring at, eaten alive with gut-twisting jealousy. Bruises under his eyes, sweaty, haggard. 

_(Skin awash in red and gold, light caught in his hair, otherworldly—)_

“Prince N’Jadaka of the Golden Tribe. My father committed a great wrong against you, and for that I am sorry.” T’Challa spreads his hands. “I would ask for your forgiveness, but I suspect you prefer actions over words.”

Erik looks into his stupid fucking handsome face and reaches for the rage, but by now the rage is draining out of the world along with everything else. “Fuck you,” he says, last gasp, all he has left, mouth filling with copper. 

And then T’Challa moves - takes Erik’s hands in his. Touches him without violence for the first time. 

“Cousin. _Brother,”_ he says, spacing his words out with care. “Tomorrow, I will send word to the U.N. We will go to them and give them the truth, the truth of Wakanda. We will share. We will open ourselves to the world.” He falls silent. Then he cups Erik’s cheek, ducks his head down to look Erik in the eyes. “N’Jadaka. You are of my blood, my family. I would have you there, standing with us.”

Erik stares. The fairytale king of Wakanda, damn near pleading with him, like he hadn’t been about to murder everything T’Challa loved less than half an hour ago. Like he hadn’t been trying to finish the job on T’Challa himself. 

Something gives in his chest. Won’t be long now. 

But. 

But.

_Maybe Wakanda’s the one that’s lost._

_I should have taken you back sooner._

_The most beautiful sunsets in the world._

He tries to speak. Has to spit blood first. “You got some fucking nerve, bro,” he says, breathless. “I woulda killed you and never looked back. You don’t let a killer like me loose around your family. Stupid.”

T’Challa’s fingers tighten around Erik’s. “My family owes you a debt—”

“Paid that when you went over the waterfall,” Erik cuts him off. “A life for a life. Got what you deserved. And then I got what I deserved. Everyone dies. You know?” Getting harder to push air through his throat. 

“Don’t do this. _N’Jadaka,”_ T’Challa says in a rush, finally starting to lose that calm, kinglier-than-thou composure. Erik manages to hoist half his mouth into a crooked smile at that.

“Tell you what, cuz,” he says. Good thing the light from the dying sun is still so intense, so stunningly red, because everything would be going gray otherwise. “You don’t lock me up, and you teach me that sweet move you used on me back there, and maybe I’ll think about not walking straight into the ocean like my ancestors did.”

Fuck, his eyes. Figures, the last thing Erik sees in this cosmic assfuck of an existence would be the man whose eyes he knows better than his own. They’re darker and kinder than in the pictures. Goddammit. “You have my word,” T’Challa’s saying, the sounds fading out in Erik’s ears, and then his hands are on the handle of the knife, pulling, pulling, fuck shit fuck _shit_ goddamn hell fuck that _hurts—_

The last thing Erik keeps in his memory from this moment is the sight of T’Challa’s intent eyes, the feeling of T’Challa shoving kimoyo beads into his chest. And then: the soft dark swallows him up into kind oblivion, and he lets himself go with a sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Battlecry" by Nujabes and Shing02. Find me on [tumblr.](http://lazaefair.tumblr.com/)


End file.
